


Eclipsed

by lovedsammy



Series: War Of Hearts [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Carl being a little shit, Episode: s08e01 Mercy, Episode: s08e05 The Big Scary U, Negan Being an Asshole, Negan needs his own warning, Slight Canon Divergence, slight sexual tension, twisted father/son dynamic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 02:04:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12784584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovedsammy/pseuds/lovedsammy
Summary: Carl doesn’t stay behind in Alexandria. He convinces Rick to let him go with him on the mission to attack the Sanctuary, wanting to be in on the action and have a chance at killing Negan himself. With the plan in motion, and Negan’s forces on the ropes, there is one major setback: It’s Carl that gets trapped in the trailer with Negan instead of Father Gabriel. And he learns more about Negan than he thought he ever would, along with own conflicting feelings about the Savior leader.





	Eclipsed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic diverges from episode 8.01 in regards to the fact that Carl goes with Rick and the others to attack the Sanctuary instead of staying behind, and he’s the one that gets stuck in the trailer with Negan instead of Father Gabriel. I want more the Negan/Carl dynamic in the show, since I loved it in the comics, but since we’re not getting it, I chose to write it, lol. This fic does not contain any underage, nor any sexual content. Maybe a bit of sexual tension if you see it that way. Negan is very Negan in this fic, meaning tons of foul language and vulgarity, so proceed with caution. He should have his own warning, honestly. I wrote this fairly quickly also, so I apologize for any mistakes.

It wasn’t supposed to go down this way. 

In the midst of all of the smoke and gunfire, he’d lost sight of his dad.

To make matters worse, the walkers had started to filter into the Sanctuary, and Gregory, the absolute sniveling bastard that he was, had stolen the car with Father Gabriel inside. Even after the boy and the priest had risked their own asses trying to save the coward’s life, the older man had just taken off with a panicked Gabriel, abandoning Carl to his fate. He’d yelled for his dad in the chaos, but when the herd of the dead had started to converge on him, he knew he was on his own. The small trailer in the lot wouldn’t provide much sanctuary -  _ hah! _ \- but it would have to do until he could think of a way to get out of this and back home safely. So he’d hurried inside, trapping himself in, listening to the horrible snarls coming from outside the door. He just needed a little time to think. He needed time to think, and then -

“Well, well, look what we have here. Little baby bear wandered too far from his papa again and got himself surrounded by wolves.” The sultry tone that emanates from the darkness alerts him to the fact that he isn’t alone, and he jumps to his feet. He knows that voice, knows exactly who it belongs to.  

He can practically feel Negan’s grin, his presence insidious and smothering around him just like the shadows themselves.  

As soon as he catches sight of the man moving in front of him, he raises his gun. But just like the last time he’d been trying to acquaint a gun with Negan’s smug ass face, he’s too slow in delivering the blow. The older male is quicker than the child expects, forcefully seizing the barrel and pushing forward, effectively slamming Carl harshly onto the hard floor. The back of the boy’s head smacks the wood and instantly aches from the impact. He groans, vision swimming dizzily. His chest feels constricted with Negan pinning him down, alerting Carl not for the first time of the massive size difference that exists between them. Negan is more powerful, in every single way, and he hates it. “Isn’t this a bitch?” Negan chuckles. “Looks like you’re stuck with me again, kid. And while I respect these man-sized balls of yours - ” - And Negan’s foot presses painfully against his crotch as he says it - “ - they aren’t gonna get you outta this one. Hell, it’s looking like neither of us might. So do me a fucking favor and save trying to kill me until one or both of us goes down in a fight better than this shit.”

Negan frisks him for his weapons, yanking up the knife from where Carl has it in his gun holster and pockets it on the hem of his belt. He checks the clip in Carl’s gun, and replaces it with a chortle. “Still has almost a full fucking clip, huh? Your aim still not worth shit?” He aims the gun inches from Carl’s face, smirking down at the boy. “I could just shoot your other eye out and make you even more useless than you already are. What do you think?”

Carl glares at him, nostrils flaring. “Fuck you.”

Negan guffaws, shaking in his head, and tucks the gun into the waistband of his jeans. “I can’t talk to you like this. Let’s get you properly on your ass.”

He extends his hand, and Carl contemplates it for a second before he once again finds himself taking it, shifting so he’s sitting upright. He eyes Negan wearily, who still has Lucille’s slim handle clenched in his other fist, and draws back a little from him.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” It's an honest question, and Carl knows he is taking a chance by provoking the proverbial bear. There are no reinforcements standing by that could help him now, and certainly no badass tiger to jump out of nowhere and save him at the last minute again. If Negan is going to kill him now, there is no way he or anyone else can stop it. 

Negan frowns. “Ya know, I really fuckin' _should_. Your daddy shows up here with a bunch of assholes, you included, and lets a whole ton of undead fuckers into my house, but I bet he didn’t expect something could go wrong, now did he? The idea of someone getting _stuck_ here probably didn’t even cross his mind. Especially if that person is you. You probably convinced him to bring you along, didn’t you? You’re not the type to sit on the sidelines, are you? No, you’re out for blood, mostly mine. You’re not Alexandria’s babysitter, you’re a soldier. So he brings you along, because you know the perimeter of this place, and because he knows you can handle yourself. But instead all that happens is you get yourself left behind. Am I right?”

When Carl doesn’t respond, only deepens his glare, the man continues. “Listen, I saw you with that prick Gregory out there. I saw the way you and the priest tried to help him, only for the old windbag to bail on your little ass and leave you out in the cold. That type of morality… that doesn’t strike me to be like you at all. It kind of surprised me, if I’m being honest. So you, in here with me? That’s a good thing. Not only does it mean you’re not out there being torn apart by those fucks, but now poor Rick has one good reason to surrender to me. For good this time.”

Carl can’t help it; he laughs. It’s bitter and humorless. “How stupid are you? My dad won’t bargain for me if that’s what you’re thinking. He won’t break. You saw him, back in Alexandria, when you tried to kill me. He didn’t then. He won’t now. I told you. You won’t win, not even if you kill me.”

Negan’s eyes darken, involuntarily making Carl’s neck hairs stand on end. “You’re really starting to piss me off, you little shit. It’d be too damn easy for me to just open this door and toss your ungrateful ass out there. Hell, I still might. Your screamin’ would be delightful. I could probably even use it to my advantage to get outta this mess.”

Carl’s jaw tightens, but despite the situation, he feels victorious. If it means Negan’s death, he’d be fine with his own. “Then why don’t you?” He demands testily.

The snarling from the walkers outside grows louder, sounding increasingly more frenzied, more ravenous. They’re clawing at the trailer, intent on ripping it apart and devouring their dinner. Carl grabs his hat from where it was knocked off next to him on the floor and replaces it, wrapping his arms around his knees. He wants to bolt out of here, but there are too many of them. He’d be dead the second he stepped out. Right now, he's a sitting duck, the same as Negan, and he knows it. Negan surprises him by sliding down the wall opposite him, sighing tiredly.

“Hell, you know, what does it matter now anyway? We’re both going to be torn a-fucking-part soon enough if my people in there don’t find a way to get us out of this.”

Carl’s eyebrows furrow. “You really think they’ll be able to  --”

Negan shushes him, raising a finger to his lips. Carl shuts up, listening. The growls outside begin to lessen a bit. Not by a lot, but enough. After a few minutes of complete silence, Negan speaks again.

“All of the movement in here pissed them off. We’ll wait it out a little bit, see if my people can figure something out. One thing I’m sure as ass, though, is that they think I’m dead. And people are gonna die in there.”

The statement confuses Carl. “Why? I think they’d be better off without you.”

The quip is meant to piss Negan off, but the man doesn’t seem to take the bait. “Look, despite what your group of dickheads seems to think, I’ve helped people my whole life. You wanna know why they’re gonna start dying in there?” His tone shifts to something much more serious, colder. “Because I’m not there to _stop it_.”

Carl scoffs, disbelieving. “Yeah? You, help people? Like who?”

Something nostalgic crosses Negan’s features, a soft kind of memory that takes Carl aback a little. “Believe it or not? Kids. You don’t show ‘em the way, they turn out like garbage.” He gives Carl an almost fond once-over. “That isn’t your problem, though. One thing I can commend your dad on is that he didn’t go wrong where you’re concerned. You’ve turned out just fine. Better than fine, in fact. I wasn’t lyin’ when I said I would’ve wanted a kid like you, Carl.”

Despite himself, Carl finds that he’s curious. Softly, he asks, “So, you… you never had kids?”

“Of my own? No.” Negan huffs, but Carl catches something in it, a bitterness that he doesn’t expect. It sounds almost as if Negan is resentful of the fact. “Teaching ‘em was enough for me. Little assholes become great, big ones. So you show ‘em the way. Adults, they need it, too. Government, laws, religion, guilt. Let me impart some grown-up wisdom onto you, kid. People are weak. Every last one of us. Even you.”

“Then you’re weak, too,” Carl bites back. “You kill the innocent, people who don’t deserve it!”

Negan raises a hand. “Right and goddamned  _ wrong _ . I’m weak, but killing the innocent?  _ That  _ isn’t why.”

Carl opens his mouth to ask him what he means when the sound of cracking and splintering wood catches his attention. At once, Negan rises from his position, moving over to Carl’s side of the camper. Several pairs of walker arms begin to reach inside the trailer, trying to grasp just where Negan had just been. The man is close to Carl, but still a good distance away, on his blind side. The boy curses under his breath. Of _course_ Negan would move where he couldn’t really see him.

“We’ll wait just a little bit longer. We’ll see if my people can pull it together.” Negan tells him.

Stiffly, Carl nods. He knows it’s better not to even speak to the man, to avoid making any contact with him at all, but the little information Negan had just provided to him intrigues him more than he cares to admit. He voices the question that had been on his tongue before the walkers had interrupted. “Why… why are you weak?”

Negan smiles. “Wrong question. It is  _ how _ I am weak. But you see, I am also strong. Everyone is a mix. You can use your differences to drive your strength. And obviously, I am strong as shit. And so are you. You know, back when I was busting your balls about your eye, Carl, I was also trying to do something else. You see that gross ass hole of yours as a weakness, a blind spot, a goddamn impairment. But it’s a testament to how fuckin’ strong you really are. You hide it behind that bandage because you’re scared as shit of what people will think. But if you show it off, if you embrace it? It makes you stronger. That’s all I was trying to get you to do.”

The boy shifts so he can see him. Negan’s expression is sincere. Once more, he finds the conflict of feelings stirring up within him again. Even though he loathes the man standing before him, he knows Negan is being honest with him. More than that, he is telling him things that no one else would. He doesn’t understand how he can keep taking what Negan tells him to heart, how it comforts him to hear these things, how the man can even look at him and not see a monster. How Negan can continue to pump him up, encourage him. It doesn’t make any sense. He’s not unaware; he knows Negan has some kind of weird fascination with him. Up until now, the boy had just chalked it up to Negan playing around, humoring him, busting his balls as he’d called it.

But maybe… maybe Negan was feeling a little conflicted, too.

Negan’s lips twitch, as if he can see what Carl is thinking. “You know, back when this all started, I  _ took  _ this place. And it was a damned free-for-all. It was a confederation of assholes, an army made up of gangs of animals and I brought it all together. The last guy that was in charge? Ohh, he wasn’t in charge of shit. He allowed people to be weak. I don’t, I make them strong, which makes this  _ world _ strong. Let me ask you something’, kid. When you first got to that little shithole you call a community, did you and your dad and your band of assholes make them strong, too? Because I’ve got the feelin’ they weren’t always that way.”

Carl’s breath hitches. Alexandria’s people hadn’t been strong when he and his family had first arrived, not at all. ‘ _ They’re weak, _ ’ He remembers telling his father on the first day they’d got there, after meeting the community. All of them had been sheltered to the horrors of the outside world, to the waste basket it had become. ‘ _ And I don’t want us to get weak, too. _ ’ Surviving out there had made him, his father, and their group strong. And his father had taken up the mantle after Deanna, taught them all how to wield a knife and shoot a gun. It had lead to them reclaiming Alexandria the night he got shot. It had lead to them taking out the Wolves. It had lead to this, to them banding together to take out an even greater threat, one that he was in the room with right now.

Negan laughs, eyes glinting knowingly. “Damn, I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Tell me how you’re weak.” Carl replies instead. He had told,  _ showed _ , Negan his weaknesses. Negan knew so much about him already. Even with the tour of the Sanctuary Negan had given him, the boy still couldn’t think of any major weaknesses that Negan had, nothing the man would ever admit to, not to anyone.

Except for maybe him.

“Aren’t you a curious little shit. Why don’t you try guessin’, kid?” Negan smirks, regarding him. “I wanna see how much you think you know about me. Tell me. What does your tiny little brain think I’m possibly capable of feeling weak about, of feeling guilty of? I said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re a smart kid. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Let’s make it a game while we wait to be fucking devoured.”

Carl thinks, hard. “Not the people you’ve killed,” He says at once. “You get off on that. You like killing.”

Negan whistles. “Same as you, little serial killer. Every person that I’ve killed has needed to be. Like the ginger and the widow’s husband. Your dad put me in that position. He lead those poor bastards to their deaths. I just carried it out. He's gonna be the death of you, too, you know. And your little sis.”

The jab at his father and even more so the mere mention of Judith gets under his skin, making Carl see red. “You _asshole_!” He growls, rising to his feet, lunging toward Negan. The man’s reaction time is something to be admired, Carl thinks, even as Negan forcefully shoves the child back with a hand against the boy’s chest, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line.

“Whoa, whoa. No, I don’t fuckin’  _ think _ so. Sit the fuck down, kid, before that temper of yours gets you in even more trouble. Didn’t your dad ever tell you to think, not act? Calm the hell down and think. What do you think an outburst like that is going to do? It’ll rile them up again real fuckin’ quick and then you and I will have a problem ten times bigger than this dick measuring contest we've got going on.”

Restraining the urge to clock the man in the face, Carl breathes through his nostrils, willing himself to relax. Negan was, unfortunately, right. Getting into a fight with him now would result in nothing but the walkers outside breaking in faster. He can feel his body shaking in rage, seething. He fixes Negan with his most hateful glare, silently daring him to try something.

“You wanna have a go at me?” Negan growls, getting into his face. “I get it. That’s fine and fuckin’ dandy. Maybe later. But chill the hell out right now, otherwise we might not make it out of here long enough for you to even try and get a swing at me.”

They stare each other down, neither willing to fully back down. But Carl thinks of Rick, how his father managed to control his own anger all of the times he’d dealt with Negan, too, and his head clears. Exhaling deeply, he moves out of Negan’s personal space, proving to him that he is taking the high ground and backing off for the time being. Negan steps back, too.

“That’s what I fuckin’ thought.”

“You have a hierarchy,” Carl points out angrily after the tension slowly begins to diffuse. “A point system. You don’t treat everyone here as equals. Eventually, they’re going to get sick of you. You’re enslaving them.”

Negan nonchalantly leans back against the wall again, jousting his hips outward. Carl idly wishes he'd break his back. “They get warm beds, they’re fed, and they’re safe from the world out there. Which is a hell of a lot better than what some of them had even before. They’re thankful.”

“Your wives, then,” Carl tries again. “You have so many because you’re compensating for something. You pressure them into marrying you, because otherwise you’d have no one. Were you alone before, when this whole thing started? Or did you have someone… a wife? Did you lose her?”

The way Negan’s features harden tells him he’s hit the nail on the head. The man goes completely rigid, and for a single moment, Carl actually feels himself tremble a little underneath Negan’s gaze, at the ire that enters his eyes. Negan slowly begins to approach him, raising the bat just above Carl’s head, looking down at him with a look of pure fury that the teen had only seen back in Alexandria, when his father had stood up to him. And Carl’s heart skips a beat because fuck, he’s finally done it. He’s finally pissed the man off enough to kill him. He braces himself for the pain.

But then Negan suddenly turns away from Carl, muttering something under his breath. Taking advantage of Negan’s back to him, Carl’s eye trails down to where his pistol in seated in the man’s back pocket, and the younger male acts instinctively. He snatches the gun and fires, aiming for Negan’s head. Even distracted, Negan surprises him with how fast he’s able to react to a threat. He turns and dislodges the gun from Carl’s hand. The shot Carl had been in the middle of firing ricochets off the wall, and the boy takes the chance to dart into the small room ahead of Negan, slamming the door shut behind him.

He’s panting, heart racing from the adrenaline, the pounding loud and audible in his ears. He hears Negan slam Lucille hard against the door.

“All right, kid!” Negan yells. “You’ve reached your fucking quota of the day for trying to kill me! You took your shot!  _ Shots _ ! And I’m reaching  _ my _ fucking quota of dealing with frenzied little assholes, so come the hell out! Time to go! I swear to God, kid, if you keep your ass in there I’m going to bust down this door to get you, and then we’ll both be up for walker grabs, so make your choice right now!”

It isn’t much of a choice, Carl knows. Either he is going to die by getting his head bashed in as soon as he opens the door or he’s going to be torn apart by walkers. But he isn’t a coward. He isn’t going to die holed up in some trailer, just waiting for the end. He’s going to look death in the face and defy it until his very last breath, and that meant he had only one viable option. He’d go out there, face Negan like a man, and deal with it.

He leans against the door, realizing that the pounding has stopped, and the only sound is his own ragged breathing. He swallows thickly, fingers reaching for the handle, and pulls back again.  

When he hears Negan speak again, it’s more leveled, softer. “Listen. We have Lucille, and your gun, to help us get to the Sanctuary. We have a chance. We should use it. But most importantly, Carl, we have each other. People are a resource. We make it inside, we live. We could make it, and lay out dead ones in the courtyard. Or, I could do what I was going to do back in Alexandria, and I could just kill you. But I’m going to be honest here. That’s not what I want. I like you, kid, a hell of a lot more than I should. Hell, I couldn’t even look you in the one fucking eye you have to bash your brains in, because I couldn’t  _ do _ that to you. It wasn’t about killing you, not really. It was about punishing your dad. And yeah, you dyin’ would fuckin’ wreck him, but maybe you’re right. Maybe it wouldn’t make him stop. But giving you back to him, alive and safe, well - that’s a debt he’d owe me. And hell if I’m not gonna use it. Work with me here, and we’ll get out alive.”

Carl bites the inside of his cheek, sighing. He’s a dead man no matter what decision he makes. He’s tired, suddenly, so very tired. How many times had it been now, that he’d looked death in the eye and escaped its wrath? More than he deserved, probably. So many others hadn’t been as lucky as he had. Unbidden, he thinks of his mother, and how maybe he’ll get to see her real soon. He thinks of his father, hoping he can continue with what needs to be done, of Michonne, fierce and strong-willed and protective. He thinks of Judith, how he’d never see her grow up, and his heart aches. He thinks of the middle eastern man he saw earlier, whose words - though disconnected and probably spoken out of disillusionment - had struck a chord with him.

_My Mercy prevails over my Wrath._

Unexpectedly, Carl finds himself talking about him.

“Earlier, before I came here with my dad… I met this guy,” It’s said so quietly, he’s not sure at first if Negan can hear him. But he hears the man’s slow breathing on the other side of the door and knows that he’s listening with rapt attention. “He was talking to himself, talking about things that didn’t make sense. Said he was hungry, hadn’t eaten in days. But then he started talking about his mother, and the Qu’ran, and something she used to say to him. ‘My mercy prevails over my wrath’.” He pauses to release a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. “My mom… while she was dying, she told me not to let the world spoil me. She said that I was good. She said I was the best thing she ever did. So when I heard him say that, it made me remember. It made me think about mercy. Coming here, to kill you… I thought about it. I thought… maybe the answer could be mercy.”

He hates it, as soon as the words come out of his mouth. He doesn’t know why he’s telling Negan this, why he’s giving him more ammo to continue to use against him. He doesn’t know why he’s confiding in him at all. He expects Negan to mock him, to laugh at him, to be disappointed in him for not being the badass Negan thought he was  - and why did he care about that either? Negan’s opinion of him didn’t matter, right? - and doesn’t even expect the man to respond. When he does, Carl certainly doesn’t expect his tone to be gentle, bordering on comforting.

“Well that’s some heavy shit you just told me. Guess I should return the favor, huh?”

Carl waits with baited breath. He doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for, really. And for what feels like a long time, Negan doesn’t say anything.

“My first wife was a real wife,” The man begins. “My  _ only _ real wife. Till death did us part. It was before this. I lied to her, I screwed around on her. She was sick, and when she went… when she went, it was during this, and I… I couldn’t put her down.  _ That _ is how I was weak. I wasn’t like you. Your mama… you shot her in the head before she could even turn, and that takes major strength, kid. Truth is, we could be biting the big one, here. But I’d rather it not be today, for either one of us.”

Carl shudders, closing his eye. A part of him feels sympathy for Negan, for what had happened to him. He had been so focused on seeing the monster that he had never stopped to think of the human who’d been underneath. He still hated Negan with every fiber of his being, but he was beginning to accept that it was conditional hated. Somewhere deep in all of it, respect had grown. He doesn’t understand it, why he’s come to admire this man, of all people, who had taken so much. The man who had killed his friends. But it was happening, and although he hates that it is, he can’t deny it anymore. With steely resolve, he makes up his mind.

He flings the door open, for better or for worse, and stares Negan in the face.

“Guess we’ll take our chances, then,” He says resignedly. “But you know that the first chance I get, I swear I’m going to kill you.”

It is the closest to a truce Negan is going to get, and he knows that the man knows it. Negan appears almost saddened by the statement for a moment before he smirks, nods, and then solidly slaps the boy across the face. The force of it knocks Carl’s head sideways, and he glares heatedly at the man.

“What the hell?!”

“Punishment, kid.” Negan says simply. “You deserve a good old fashioned whooping but I’ll hold off on that. Anyway…” He lowers himself over in front of a dead walker, dragging it inside the trailer. He poises the knife above it, glancing at Carl. “You ever try the trick with the guts?”

Carl nods. “My dad knew about it from the beginning. We used it the night I got shot. Got us through the herd that had swarmed in.”

“Smart thinkin’ from your dad,” Negan quips. “Too bad it didn’t save your eye, too, huh? Yeah. But this shit is putrid. It’s decaying organs, blood, piss and shit all cooked up in the Virginia sun. You know, people have gotten sick from this?”

“I’m from Georgia,” Carl raises his chin. “I can handle it. I've handled worse.”

“Well, aren’t you a cocky shit?” Negan laughs. “All right, get your hands in there, kid. Make sure to wipe it everywhere.” Negan grabs a handful of intestines and plasters them all over his upper body. His nose crinkles at the smell. Carl can’t exactly hold back a gag, either, as he applies it too.  

Once they’re both sufficiently covered in walker guts, Negan looks Carl up and down, chuckling.

“You’re gonna need a new shirt after this shit.”

Carl gestures at him. “You’re gonna need a new jacket.”

They lean against the camper window, and Negan peers through the blinds, waiting for the right moment. Once he seems to decide it’s time, he nods his assent to Carl, who readies himself. “All right. Let’s make some noise. Let ‘er rip.”

Together, they start hollering and pounding on the trailer door, wrenching it open. At once, the walkers began to filter in, and they freeze in place. Luckily, the dead don’t seem to notice them, so they proceed outwards, with Negan ahead while Carl flanks behind him. Once again, staring at the back of Negan’s head, the teen contemplates putting a bullet in his brain but quickly changes his mind. The only thing killing the bastard would result in was him getting himself devoured too, and anyway, he didn’t want to kill Negan like this. He wanted to do it where the man could see him, could look him in the eye and know that it was Carl who was killing him. Anything else, any other way, felt cheap.

They continue along, watchful of the walkers crowded around them, but they still don’t seem to recognize that the two trespassers maneuvering through the herd are alive. With so many, though, it’s hard to navigate through without bumping into them. Carl thinks that maybe a couple of them catch a whiff of their scent as they pass them, insides clenching nervously. And as Carl goes around a particularly rowdy one, it turns its head, finally seeing him, and makes a grab for him. Carl goes rigid, not knowing what to do, a gasp as quiet as a whisper escaping his lips. He opens his mouth to warn Negan. This wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to - they were going to _die_. And then Negan is there, smashing Lucille hard against the walker’s cranium, saving him. The action seems to spur another, which goes for Negan. Without hesitation, Carl fires a shot into the walker’s brain. Negan’s eyes are wide when he meets the boy’s own stunned gaze, and his lips curl into a grin. They could get through this, as long as they worked together. And no matter what came after, Carl figures it’s worth it, just to have a chance. He faces away from Negan so that they are back to back, popping off rounds and smashing in heads with a newfound trust between them: f _ or now, you have my back and I have yours _ . It would be fleeting, but it was trust all the same.

Another walker closes in on Carl, open-mouthed and gnashing teeth aiming for his throat. Negan swiftly moves into action, shoving the walker away from the boy and seizes the kid’s arm to move him out of danger. Carl can feel his limbs starting to exhaust, his breath coming out in short bursts. He glances at Negan, seeing that the older man is beginning to slow down, too. They’ve reached the base of stairwell of the Sanctuary, but it’s swarmed with walkers.

“Damn!” Negan hisses. “We’re fucked if we don’t get up there.”

“We’ll get there,” Carl assures. He pulls back the trigger on the gun and fires, shooting one of the walkers nearest the rails. Brain matter splatters about, almost hitting his face and he grimaces. “Quick,” He urges the older male, holding out his hand. “Get me up there. We’ll have more of a chance if we take them from both sides.”

To his surprise, Negan doesn’t even argue. He hoists Carl up and over the banister in an instant. They clear out the remaining walkers in front of the door and make a beeline for it. As soon as the metal slams shut behind them, their hands are on their knees, coughing and panting.

“Good work out there, kid,” Negan claps him on the shoulder when they can breathe again. “Guess your aim isn’t as shitty as I thought. You saved my ass.”

“You helped me too,” Carl replies evenly.

Negan nods. “Yeah. Consider that my way of evening out the score. I tried to kill you, right? Same for you. We’re even.”

Carl returns it, unsure of what happens now. Luckily, Negan seems to have an answer for that, too.

“Come on. Let’s go get cleaned up, restore some fuckin' order here, and then we’ll talk.”


End file.
